5-7-06 Sunflower Mine and FS #293 from Sunflower to Barlett Lake

Once again we had another excellent adventure. The riders for this adventure are Greg, Mark (cowboy), Jeff & Jeff, Mark and Me, (Don). We went to Sunflower AZ because it is getting to warm to ride in the desert. This is a nice transition area since it is a bit higher elevation and there are still some areas to grab your attention. We met up with some friends that were testing out their new buggy they are James and Joel. That thing looks awesome. This was the 1 outing for the red buggy, the silver one is the proto-type. As you can see in the photos there was a slight problem with the red buggy as we pulled up to Sunflower mine. The front steering arm broke off so we had to lift the buggy onto the rear of the proto-type with the aid of the winch. It was a good thing they designed it with a rear spare tire so the red buggy could rest on top of the tire to be towed back to the trailer. The front tires had to be removed as they were resting on the rear tires of the front buggy. Looks like a little R & D but this will be a buggy to be reckoned with soon. The engineering is amazing. I spoke to James today about the tie rod breaking, he said they had just gotten the buggy together for the Big Boys and their Toys show and the part for the tie rods did not come in so they used a steel bolt instead of chrome molly bolt. He had forgotten they did not change them out.

At this point my camera decided it did not want to turn on at all. I have 2 batteries fully charged but no power. My camera is only 4 months old. Some of the guys were giving me a really hard time about my camera because they know how much I love photos. Jeff was saying something about me having withdrawals or my blood pressure must be over 300. Oh well, stuff happens. Anyway the first 12 photos are mine and the rest are from Jeff ( azgolfer ) and Mark (cowboy).

After leaving the mine we headed down the trail through the creek. After a couple of miles the trail takes a hard right up a rocky portion to the top of a mountain. We decided at this point to backtrack to a trail I had been on a few years ago that was along the creek. When I was on it before we turned around as it was very off camber with a 20 drop off on the downhill side. The trail is just barley wide enough for a quad, in fact there are a few marks where you can see someone rolled down the embankment. Greg went through the off camber and the rest were not real happy about trying it so I said lets do the go around in the creek, well that was no good as we came to an area that was impassable. As we were turning around for some reason Mark wanted to see if he could pick up his new Polaris 500 EFI by himself. Not!!! He needed assistance from Jr and me. I will say one thing for that EFI it worked well. His Polaris never shut off even when it was on its side. From there we all went through the off camber area only to find out the trail ended after about 100 yards so we had to come back through the same bad spot again and back to the top of the mountain. From here we continued around the loop to the main road. We did make one stop for Greg and me to climb a nasty long rutted, steep boulder strewn hill. That one had our full attention. It was especially nasty coming back down on our Polaris machines with awful engine braking. The rear wants to come around and swap places with the front. We made it so it was fun.

As we got back to the truck Jeff said I saw a trail #293 from here that goes to Bartlett Lake, it looks like about 10 miles. Lets try it. Ok, for Roy (he couldnt make it) we should hit another trail. It ended up being about 15 miles one way but it was a beautiful trail on our way in. As we got close to the lake the trail was similar to trail # 42 from Horseshoe Lake to Bartlett Lake. It ended in a wash that went to the Lake. We had some fun playing in the mud and I was even jumping my heavy Polaris in the sand. On the return trip to the trucks I was thinking I was on the trail at Devils Canyon there were so many rocks. Why is it so much rougher coming out than it is on the trail in?

Just in case you are thinking we were tearing up the environment near the lake remember this is a wash. The next rain (in a year or so) and all the tracks will be gone. In fact this area is usually under water.